


Signs and Sigils

by methylviolet10b



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: AO3 Fundraiser Auction, Alternate Universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-31
Updated: 2013-11-28
Packaged: 2017-12-31 02:48:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 8,888
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1026381
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/methylviolet10b/pseuds/methylviolet10b
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John Hamish Watson was born with a mass of unformed soul-stuff in his hand and a caul over his head.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Anachronism

**Author's Note:**

  * For [nox_candida](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nox_candida/gifts).



> A short ice-age ago, nox_candida kindly placed the winning bid on a story from me in the AO3 Auction Fundraiser, gave me five words, and told me to have fun. I am *so* sorry it took me this long to write something for you! On the plus side, you’re going to get five weeks’ worth of story from me, as this story does indeed come in five parts. I’ll be posting subsequent parts every Thursday. Happy Halloween, and I hope you find this a treat!
> 
> Warnings: AU. Contains references to at least two ACD canon case that viewers might recognize.

John Hamish Watson was born with a mass of unformed soul-stuff in his hand and a caul over his head.

That the soul-stuff was unformed was no uncommon thing. Very few babies were born with a sigil, a soul-form sign of their true calling already formed in their hands. Those so born were considered blessed by the general population, although a few psychologists murmured uncomfortable things about what it must be like, having your life’s path set out for you before you were even aware of the world. But few people paid any attention to those professional doubts, particularly since the best-known examples of those born with a sigil already formed were hereditary royalty, and who could believe terrible things about being born a prince or princess?

The important thing was that John had a nice bit of soul-stuff in his hands, brightly apparent to his mother, and dimly visible at the moment of his birth even to those present who were not related to him by blood. The wave of relief and joy around the room was palpable, just as strong as when John had issued his first cry. For even rarer than babies with soul-stuff already formed were those unfortunate, occasional babies who were born with no soul-stuff visible at all. It was widely believed that in the best-case scenario, such babies were doomed to die in infancy, untimely cot-deaths with no visible cause. Rarely spoken of, but widely understood in certain circles, was the likelihood that not all those deaths were accidental, for terrible things were told of those worst-cases, those that lived beyond childhood. Some of history’s worst villains were said to have been born without soul-stuff, killers and sociopaths whose very lack was (or should have been) apparent to their close relatives from the moment of their birth. Of course no one could prove that these rumours were true. Soul-stuff disappeared at death no matter what its sigil form in life, and since soul-forms were intangible and rarely witnessed by any but the closest companions or family, there could be no conclusive proof. But nearly everyone believed those dark tales just the same, no matter what doctors and philosophers wrote on the subject.

No, the unusual thing about John’s birth was the caul. Despite the phenomena being well understood, medically speaking, superstitions persisted about caul children. Some said that it was an unlucky sign, that children so born would never have their soul-stuff settle into a single sigil form, that their true vocation would remain forever hidden from them. Some claimed the opposite; that caul children were exceptional, flexible, lucky, able to fit in anywhere and overcome any obstacles. Still others believed that a caul, particularly a clear one stretched over the upper part of the face, indicated the gift of soul-sight, the ability to see other people’s soul-forms regardless of relation or attempted concealment. A double-edged gift, that one. One often faked by charlatans, but known to truly exist.

John’s grandmother, a Highland Scotchwoman and trained nurse present for the birth of her first grandson, simply smiled and wiped the squalling infant clean. “Poppycock,” she said later, dismissing the hesitantly-voiced family concerns as an anachronism of a more superstitious past. “Johnny’s a healthy babe, and a caul is just a scrap of amnion. He’ll be what he’ll be, and he’ll do just fine.”

And if her bright green eyes – eyes unlike those found in any other member of the family – gleamed a little more brightly when she said so, no one dared say anything about it. Nan was a force to be reckoned with, a woman who’d seen war and peace, life and death, and never hesitated to speak her mind. It was best not to cross her, even if you didn’t believe the rumour that she had the second sight.

In his later years, hearing the stories told about her, John often wished he’d had the chance to know her better.


	2. Deception

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the first years of his life John had no idea he’d been born with a caul.

For the first years of his life John had no idea he’d been born with a caul. Like other children he learned to conceal his soul-stuff from others, just like he learned not to pick his nose or scratch private spots in public – and all at about the same age. And like other children, his soul-stuff first formed very nebulous shapes as he started to understand the world and the wonders in it. John’s dad grinned widely when he caught a glimpse of his five year old son turning a miniature, glowing rugby ball over in his hands the evening after he’d taken John to a local match. His mother smiled wistfully when, after a month of playing every day with his toy fire truck, drawing innumerable pictures of stick-figures wielding hoses against bright-red flames, and running around making siren noises with Harry at every opportunity, she found a softly-shining fireman’s helmet sheltering John’s drowsing head.

Children’s forms, children’s games, none lasting very long, and all perfectly normal. As he grew older, John grew more skilful at keeping his soul-forms hidden, waking and sleeping, just as the forms themselves grew more complex. He still sometimes woke with a rugby-ball clutched in his hands. He was a keen player and showed a talent for the game. His coaches were cautiously encouraging, praising his cool head, his quick turn of speed, and his utter fearlessness on the field, even as they shook their heads over his short stature. But other forms started appearing, too, ones he hadn’t thought of, sometimes ones he didn’t understand, ghosting in and out of existence with neither rhyme nor reason.

He was twelve when his soul-stuff first showed him something that might be a sigil, an emblem of a true calling and not just a childhood fantasy. He was supposed to be doing homework, but his mind wandered. He was thinking of nothing in particular when he felt a strange tug and tingle, unlike anything he’d ever felt before. He looked down at his hands and saw something glowing right above them. A line with something wavy around it, and a bright blue dot near the top. It wasn’t anything he recognized, not anything he’d seen before, and yet it seemed strangely familiar.

He blinked and it was gone, his soul-stuff flowing back into the shining blank disc John liked to keep it in when he had it manifested but it wasn’t showing him shapes.

His mother found him a few hours later paging through the two-volume sigil encyclopaedia that had originally belonged to his dad. “Tough homework assignment?”

“No.” John had forgotten all about his schoolwork. He looked up at his mum, scared and excited and conflicted all at the same time. “I think… I think I might have seen something in my soul-stuff. Maybe a sign, but I’m not sure what it was. I was hoping maybe I’d find a picture of something like it, something that might help me understand.”

“A sigil?” One of her hands rose, trembling, to brush her mouth, before her lips turned up in a wavering smile. “Oh, Johnny. And you’re about the right age for your first sign. Maybe a little young, certainly too young for a final form, but you’re growing up.” Her smile strengthened into a warm, loving look that made John flush. “I’m so proud of you.” She hesitated, then went on: “If you want, you could describe it to me and I could help you look.”

They didn’t find it, not then, but John felt confident enough about it to mention it to his dad when he came home that evening. Before he could say anything else – or his dad could do more than start to smile – Harry popped up from where she’d been lounging on the sofa. John hadn’t seen her. He certainly wouldn’t have said anything if he had. When they were small kids he used to show Harry some of his soul-forms, just as she would sometimes show him hers. They’d been close that way. But she’d stopped wanting to share years ago, going prickly and dismissive in turns, and now he blushed bright red, feeling as embarrassed as if she’d caught him running from the shower to his bedroom naked and dripping because he’d forgotten a towel (again).

“What?” she shouted before rolling her eyes. “Not likely! You’re putting us on. I haven’t had one and I’m older than you. And _I’m_ not the one that was born with a caul.”

“What?” John asked, baffled and still mortified.

“Harriet!” Their dad, in contrast, sounded _furious_ in a way John had rarely heard before.

John expected a blazing row. Harry had been moody lately, getting into trouble, always ready to start a fight. He wasn’t expecting Harry to cringe, or the remorseful guilt in her eyes when she looked at him. “I - ”

“Not another word, Harriet. Go to your room. We’ll talk about this later.” That was their mum, sounding just as angry as their dad.

With a sound that might have been an angry hiss or a gasping sob, Harry fled upstairs. John heard her bedroom door slam, and then he was alone in the sitting-room with his parents, with a maelstrom of emotions and a head full of unasked questions.

His parents explained that night about how he was born with a caul, what some people thought it meant. They told him about their decision to not say anything to him about the particular circumstances of his birth, to let him grow up without all that baggage (which was nothing but superstition, his dad said his Nan called it) hanging over his head and maybe causing him problems with his finding his true path by plaguing him with doubts. They weren’t sorry for their deception, or so they claimed, because they’d just been protecting him from something that didn’t mean anything anyway. But their eyes told John that they _were_ sorry, or at least were upset about getting caught. And from all that, John figured out that they, at least, believed there _was_ maybe something wrong with him, from having been born with a caul.

John didn’t speak to Harry for a week after that, and not just because she was essentially confined to her room when she wasn’t at school. He was angry, yes, particularly because she’d somehow learned a secret about him _and never told him about it_ , but more importantly, he was busy. He spent a lot of time at the school library and the public reading-room, looking up anything he could find about caul children as well as going through all the books about sigils that he could get his hands on. Sigils were a popular subject, particularly for those between ten and eighteen, so the volumes had to be read at the library. No one was allowed to check them out and take them home.

At the end of the week he still couldn’t identify what he thought he might have seen. His glimpse of it had been too brief, and his memory of it faded too quickly, lost in the jumble of all the pictures he looked at. But he had learned far more about caul children than he had ever wanted to know. There were all kinds of stories if you knew where to look. Nothing scientific in nature, aside from a few nebulous and dodgy articles, but folklore and anecdotes abounded from almost every culture around the world. He suspected his parents might have been right in wanting to keep this from him, but it was too late now. Now he knew and he couldn’t forget. He didn’t think he was going to feel all right again until his soul-form decided to settle, which probably wouldn’t be for years and years, if he fell among the average. Most people found their true path in late puberty.

If he did settle. If the stories weren’t true.

He wasn’t able to find out much about how many (if any) people didn’t find their true calling. There was more material than he could ever read about understanding your sigil, about finding happiness on your true path, about what careers best suited those whose sigils weren’t obvious, but actual numbers didn’t seem to exist. Then again, who would want to admit such a thing?

He wouldn’t, if it happened to him. But he wouldn’t have to, because he’d find his path, whatever it was. He simply _would_. He’d find his calling. His soul-form would settle into a proper sign. It would, and he’d know.

John’s chin set in a stubborn line that year, one that remained characteristic in every picture from that time forward.


	3. Blackmail

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The flat was silent for long minutes after the man – their newest client – left.

 

Chapter 3: Blackmail

The flat was silent for long minutes after the man – their newest client – left. John had to fight the urge to curl his hands into fists, or worse.

“Blackmail,” Sherlock said thoughtfully. He remained seated in his chair just as he had been before, hands steepled in front of his lips, eyes gazing unblinkingly at nothing in particular. He looked the very picture of calm, but there was an undercurrent in the sound of the syllables that John couldn’t place.

“Not just any blackmail,” John replied.

“No, indeed not. A very novel form of it, in fact. I don’t know how many people are _sentimental_ enough to have a studio photograph taken of themselves and their lover holding representations of each other’s sigils, but to do so – and then to later jilt the woman as not _suitable_ enough for actual marriage to a man in his position – that requires a rare form of idiocy.” The acid in Sherlock’s voice when he pronounced the word _sentimental_ could have eaten a hole in their sitting-room carpet. “There’s only a limited number of people for whom this particular form of blackmail would be applicable, but our royal client is certainly one of them, especially now.”

John blinked. That was a severe understatement. The royal engagement was in all the papers. You couldn’t turn on the telly without hearing someone going on and on and _on_ about it. Never mind that he wasn’t a member of the _British_ royal family; _she_ was, or close enough to it, and the media was having a field day with the ‘fairy-tale romance’ of it all. A foreign and fabulously wealthy prince who had been the prize of Europe for years, and yet remained a determined bachelor! An English girl of noble blood but modest background, winning his heart! Such a wonderful story!

A tale with a rotten blight at its core, apparently. Not that John had ever really bought into the rubbish about this being a first love for either of them, much less a first _real_ love, but this was a rather bigger skeleton in the closet than he might have expected. You didn’t share your true sigil with just anyone. In fact, most adults didn’t show theirs to anyone at all.

John certainly never had, and the very idea of doing so made him break out in a cold sweat.

“If he’d just lied about his sigil for the picture, none of this would matter,” Sherlock went on. “But he didn’t, or so he says, and he wasn’t lying, at least not about that. Not that anyone could make him _prove_ that it was the genuine article – or an accurate representation – but if this comes out, the suspicion would always be there, and he’d have no way of proving it wasn’t true. Because it is.” He snorted. “Nude pictures would be far easier to explain away.”

“Well, that’s why he’s come to you instead of hiring more PR agents,” John pointed out. “Although really, I’m not sure what you can do.”

“John!” Sherlock looked scandalized.

“No, not like that,” John explained hastily. “If anyone can find her, I’m sure you can. And I’m sure you can figure out how to stop the automatic emailing of the picture to the various news agencies within 72 hours. You hack the mobiles of half of London when you’re bored, I’m sure you could figure out how to stop it, or know someone who could arrange it if you couldn’t.”

Sherlock’s incipient sulk metamorphosed into a smug smirk as John went on, but by the time he finished speaking, he’d lapsed into a slight frown. “Then what’s worrying you? Something is. Don’t deny it.”

“I wouldn’t bother to try, not with you.” The rejoinder was almost automatic as John struggled to define what was nagging at him, much less find the words to express it. “It’s just… What are you going to do when you find her?”

Sherlock’s frown deepened, but it wasn’t a scowl, more confusion. “Get the picture back, of course, and make sure any digital copies have been destroyed.”

It was what he’d been hired to do, but John wasn’t satisfied with the answer. “But what about her?”

“What about her?” Sherlock echoed.

“It doesn’t seem fair somehow. I mean, she must have believed in him, been in love with him too, to take a picture like that.”

Sherlock shook his head. “John,” he chided. “Always the romantic, believing the best of people. It’s just as likely that she had something like this in mind all along. It might not even be her true sigil represented in the picture, although she’d be more believable if it was.”

“Sherlock!”

“She’s a _blackmailer_ , John.” Sherlock’s chin set in anger. “She’s threatening our client with exposing the most personal detail possible in order to ruin his upcoming marriage. That’s not an act of love, whatever her original feelings might have been. You haven’t dealt with blackmailers before. I have. And if there’s anyone who deserves having all the resources I can bring to bear thrown against her, it’s a blackmailer. People are stupid, but that doesn’t mean that they deserve to be crushed and smashed underfoot by their petty mistakes, puerile fears, and insecurities, and that’s what blackmailers do. They’re far more cruel than murderers. They fancy themselves clever, but even the smartest of them are really no more than common bullies at the core.”

He’d never heard Sherlock sound so fundamentally indignant about anything, any other criminal or case. He almost looked repulsed at the idea of the crime, and John never thought Sherlock could be repelled by anything criminal. He took a deep breath and rose from his seat. “Right then. Where do we start?”

Sherlock’s uncharacteristic show of emotion vanished as quickly as it had come. He gave John a lopsided smile and sprang up from his armchair. “ _We_ don’t start anything, not just yet.” He shrugged off his dressing-gown and reached for his suit jacket where he’d thrown it over the back of the sofa. “I need to go out and speak to a few contacts. Don’t wait up.” He gave John a cheeky wink before grabbing his Belstaff and swiftly striding out of the room. John heard him clattering down the stairs and his cheery call-out to Mrs Hudson as he made his way out the front door.

Sherlock remained absent for the rest of the day. Alone in the flat, John found himself practically climbing the walls. He wanted to be doing _something_ to help on this case. He still wasn’t satisfied with Sherlock’s characterization of the matter. And it wasn’t because he wasn’t familiar with blackmail, or at least the threat of it. He knew all about emotional blackmail first-hand from family, and he’d seen some pretty ugly incidents in med school and the Army, too.

Yes, blackmail was horrible, but so were broken promises, shattered faith, and ruined dreams; all of which were implied by the existence - and refutation of - that damning photograph. Sherlock either didn’t, or couldn’t, understand that; the depths of love and loyalty implied by the act, and the horrible betrayal of the rejection of it. Sherlock was notoriously contemptuous of much of society’s norms, including the strictures around soul-forms and sigils. As nearly as John could tell, for the consulting detective they were simply another bit of evidence, ones that people tried to hide, much to his annoyance. Even so, John had never seen Sherlock go so far as to flout his own sigil despite his own often-voiced complaints at the custom of keeping them private. Detective Sergeant Donovan was one of a number of people John had heard mutter about it, but she’d gone quite a bit further, all but accusing Sherlock of not _having_ a soul-form as a way of warning John away from Sherlock. She’d gone dead pale when John had quietly but furiously replied that was the worst sort of slander, something unbecoming in an officer, that he expected better from a representative of Scotland Yard, and was Lestrade aware of her prejudices?

John still wasn’t sure of the answer to that question. He hadn’t actually gone to Lestrade with it then, despite his implied threat. As he’d grown to know Greg better, John found it hard to believe that his friend _didn’t_ know of Sally’s prejudices, if only because he was too smart (and too observant, no matter what Sherlock said) not to have noticed. But he kept his team in line, and honestly, John couldn’t deny that Sherlock provoked them often enough to deserve some of the things Donovan and the others said about him. Not what she’d implied about Sherlock’s lack of soul-form; not that, never that. But she’d never brought it up again, at least not in John’s hearing. Not even in the face of that one time when Sherlock all but said that he knew what Donovan’s sigil was.

Of course the way Sherlock had said it, he’d almost certainly meant it as a compliment. John wasn’t sure that hadn’t made it worse, in a way. Unspoken in the sudden, chilling silence that had followed his words was the instinctive fear that instead of lacking a soul-form, Sherlock might be one of those rare people who could actually _see_ other people’s sigils, no matter how their owners hid them.

That was something else John had never dared ask. If Sherlock didn’t have the soul-sight, John was immensely impressed that he’d managed to deduce a sigil’s form without it. If anyone could determine what a person’s sigil was without being able to actually see it, John was firmly convinced that Sherlock was that man. On the other hand, if Sherlock really did have the soul-sight… He cut off that line of thought firmly.

Frustrated, he went up to his room and dug out the old journal Mycroft had given him in one of their creepy, ‘kidnap you off for tea and quiz you for information about my brother, about whom I worry constantly’ conferences. “You might find this helpful,” he’d told him, with one of those half-friendly, half-condescending smiles of his. “You’re in an unusual position, but you’re not the first man to find himself at the right hand of a man determined to wage his own private war on the world.”

That was certainly an apt way of putting it, much more so than Sherlock’s self-described “world’s only consulting detective,” not that John would ever admit as much to anyone, much less Mycroft. “I’m Sherlock’s friend, not his right-hand man, or soldier, or whatever else you’re implying,” he’d replied, but Mycroft had only smiled and insisted he take it.

Infuriated by that knowing, complacent smirk, John had almost thrown the weathered, leather-bound volume at his conceited head. Two things stopped him: one, an ingrained respect for a book of its age; and two, the knowledge that despite everything, when Mycroft Holmes advised a particular course of action, he usually had good reasons for doing so. Sometimes those reasons were only good to _him_ and his particular world-view, but actions like that were never idle. Sometimes they were even useful to people who _weren’t_ Mycroft.

And it was always better to keep one eye open where any Holmes was concerned, which meant that despite himself, and despite his irritation with Mycroft, John knew he’d wind up looking at the journal sooner or later.

He’d made sporadic headway since that day. Life with Sherlock didn’t leave a lot of time or extra energy for reading through the cramped, old-fashioned penmanship of an earlier age. And the journal was most definitely the product of a much earlier time, although how much earlier remained a mystery. There were no years mentioned, or even understandable dates; the earliest entry was simply labelled “one year after,” and went on from there, with no indication of after _what_. Nor did the writer identify himself, or refer to anyone else by name. There were only occasional initials: M most often, then A and J. But this wasn’t a journal about others, John learned quickly enough. No, it was a journal about a man’s private struggle (a doctor, John suspected from a few references) to find his place in a world, a life, that was apparently very different than the one he had expected.

 _That_ certainly resonated with John. He knew the feeling well enough. So he kept coming back to the journal when he had time, like today, even though he still had no idea why Mycroft thought he should read it. He settled down on the bed, back against the headboard, focused his reading-lamp, and opened the journal to where he’d left off.

Except that it didn’t seem like the place he’d stopped reading the last time, at least not from what John remembered. There was his bookmark, all right, but the text looked different, more space on the page, the pen-lines deeper, and a few spatters of ink-blots. He’d probably put the bookmark ahead in the pages to hold it while he was reading, and forgot to move it to the place he stopped reading when he’d put it aside. He’d done that before, in everything from medical school texts to popular novels. Now he’d have to find where…

John’s thoughts cut off as a few words caught his attention:

_********soul has lost its form again** ** ** ** _

John felt his breath freeze in his chest. Almost involuntarily, his eyes skipped up to near the top of the page, where this entry started, and he began to read.

**H. is back, and I have lost myself.**

**I had thought – believed – that I had at last settled. That my fickle soul had finally come to anchor. The resumption of my career, my return to a respectable life were all outward signs of the inner return of my strength and purpose, the rebirth of my self to itself. I was well, whole, at peace with myself and my place in the world. Had I not believed so, I would have never offered marriage to M. I would have never chosen the path that I did.**

**It was terrible enough to realise my weakness after the loss of my position and profession, but at least then I could blame the horrors I had endured. The things I had seen on that fatal day had sent other men to madness, ruin, and death. My ruination was simply internalised, the scars on my flesh insignificant to the damage wreaked on my spirit. Or so I told myself.**

**I told myself that again, when I felt that terrible wrenching in my very soul, the inward shifting along with the grief and the horror of that wretched spring afternoon when I realised just how completely I had failed H, failed myself.**

**I denied what I felt. I returned to M, and to normality. I…thought it an aberration, an echo brought about by grief and loss. Yet the echo lingered, as echoes do, but instead of fading, it seemed to grow stronger with every recurrence.**

**God knows I had enough other sources of sadness and loss to fuel them. I fought Death with every resource I could muster, every particle of skill and will, yet I lost them all the same, A and J, and my beloved M too in the end. Grievous losses indeed, ones I will always mourn, with the double sorrow of the widower and father. But other men have suffered as much or worse without such effects. And now, the most fundamental change has come not from grief, but is born from joy. My greatest joy, if I was but worthy of it. If I was whole enough to accept the miracle with open arms, to be able to return the most precious of gifts.**

**Why? Why am I so cursed? All others have their places, their causes, their true callings. I alone seem to be doomed to be forever unsettled, hollow at the very core. I have been called a hero and a good man. I have tried to be these things, to be a worthy member of society and serve my fellow man. But I am fundamentally flawed, and I fear I ever will be.**

**My soul has lost its form again. Despite all my efforts, all that I have done, I have no true sigil. I think I never will.**

The journal dropped from John’s suddenly nerveless fingers. A thousand questions shrieked in his mind, so many that he felt like he was drowning in them. A glow started at his fingertips, and he moaned aloud as his soul manifested.

For a second – a brief, traitorous second – John allowed himself to believe that it would take recognizable shape. As a teen, it had manifested as a rod of Asclepius most often, a staff with a snake wrapped around it, but always a rod with a deadly-sharp, scalpel-like tip. The rod was the traditional sign of medicine, but the strange variation of the sharp end was what had led John to study medicine, specifically surgery, more than anything else. The shape was a sign, one he was happy to follow – until the day he saw the RAMC recruiting presentation, and his soul-stuff jolted within him. That night he’d seen a new form, one of a regimental sword with a snake-shaped hilt, one that gleamed at him with the same bright eye of the snake winding around the Ascelpian rod. The two forms became the only ones he ever saw, and John was fine with that, with being a doctor and soldier both. It was who he was, and if it took two soul-forms to express that totality, well, he couldn’t think of just one that would do the job. So it was fine. It was all fine.

A single bullet, and he’d lost both professions. Both parts of himself, and his soul showed as much. Every time he summoned it, he watched in helpless horror as his soul-form failed to coalesce into anything recognizable, just as it had done from the moment he’d woken up in the hospital and realised he’d never be able to hold a scalpel again, from the day he’d been discharged from the Army where he’d planned on serving his entire career.

A long, thin shape emerged, and John struggled to make it make _sense_ , to take a recognizable form at long, long last. For the most part, it looked like the rod had, but instead of a single wavy snake-like line around it, there was something else, something even more complex – a double helix, perhaps? Did his true calling still lie in medicine, maybe medical research? But there was a larger, ill-defined mass above the maybe-DNA, one that he could _almost_ make out into something, but...

A door slammed below. His emerging, nebulous, still-shapeless soul vanished.

“John!” Sherlock’s voice bellowed from the ground floor. “John, I’ve been texting you for fifteen minutes! Why haven’t you answered? Come on! I’ve located the house she’s rented! It’s a villa in St. John’s Wood. We need to get inside it!”

John took a deep, shaky breath. A quick glance at his phone showed the flashing light of waiting messages, but he’d never heard it make a sound. He shoved it into his jeans pocket without bothering to check them. “Coming,” he shouted back, and left the room, the journal still lying on the floor where he’d dropped it.

 

 

 


	4. Discovery

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John ducked down hastily behind a convenient bit of furniture...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter, certain readers might recognize references to a popular video game character. John doesn't, but then, that's John. If you don't, don't worry about it - and if you want to know, check the end notes.

 

John ducked down hastily behind a convenient bit of furniture in the well-appointed private sitting room on the second floor. They’d just succeeded in reaching it when all hell broke loose. “When I agreed to help cause a distraction so you could sneak around and break in, I didn’t mean to volunteer for a riot!” he hissed.

“It wasn’t my intention, obviously.” Sherlock crouched low near one wall, fingers flying over his mobile, eyes never leaving the screen. “Interesting. Apparently our client isn’t the only party interested in the picture.”

A loud crash came from somewhere in the house, along with raised voices. “I thought you didn’t like to state the obvious,” John snapped. He heartily wished he’d brought his gun. So far they’d managed to avoid the notice of the hoodlums trashing the place, but he knew it was likely only a matter of time before they were found.

“I don’t.”

“Yet you just did. I hope you’re calling for backup at least.”

Sherlock hesitated for a fraction of a second before answering. It wasn’t a long delay, not something anyone else would likely notice, but John had known him long enough to be instantly suspicious. “Of a sort, yes.”

“Greg?” John pressed hopefully.

“No, not - ”

A loud electronic whine cut off his words, shortly followed by a brief crackling sound. A computerized female voice suddenly echoed from seemingly every wall in the house. John looked up and spotted two speakers in this room alone.

“Hello. It may interest you to note that these entire premises are under electronic and video surveillance. In addition to having recorded your every move – the video and audio files of which are being streamed to the Metropolitan Police as we speak – your personal electronic information has also been uploaded.”

John blinked. Although the voice was pleasant enough, in a weirdly electronic way, there was also something menacing about it. And really strangely familiar, although he couldn’t quite put his mental finger on why. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Sherlock’s jaw drop slightly.

“Gladys,” he breathed.

Or at least that’s what John thought he said. He scoured his brain, trying to remember if he’d heard a Gladys mentioned in the case. He couldn’t remember any. “Gladys who?”

Sherlock shook his head.

“James Robert Caron. Age 19. My, your mother Janet won’t be pleased. Shall I give her a ring at her job in Islington?”

A high-pitched male voice shouted, anger, confusion, and a good deal of fear apparent in his tone. “What the fuck?”

“Perhaps you might consider leaving right now, before the police actually arrive on the premises, James. Not that they won’t come looking for you later, but a head start might help. You might want to take your friends Jamie Michael Davis, 25, and Daniel ‘Danny’ Smith, 20, along with you, since you all live in the same row of flats on Peckham…”

“Sod this, I’m out!” John heard the sound of trainers squeaking on the floor, beating a hasty retreat.

“Samutra ‘Sam’ Raman. Age 24. This will be your third arrest in a month, won’t it? And you’ve dragged your brother Romit along too, I see. He’s underage, so perhaps he’ll get off lightly as a first offender…except this isn’t exactly his first offense either, is it?” The computerized voice went on, naming names, ages, and addresses with pseudo-concerned, snarky remarks. Within minutes, John heard more sounds of people rapidly leaving the house, occasionally smashing a few things as they went.

“Well that’s better, isn’t it?” the computerized female voice came again after a few seconds of silence. “We’re all alone now, Mr Holmes, Doctor Watson. Come on out and make yourselves comfortable. We should sit down and have a little chat. I’m rather curious to hear what you might have to say to me, considering how much trouble you’ve gone to in order to break in.”

A brief chill went up John’s spine when the voice named him. He hadn’t spotted any security cameras, but he assumed there must be at least one to go along with the speakers, and evidently someone had identified them from the feed.

Sherlock, on the other hand, looked delighted as he made himself comfortable in one of the two wing-back chairs. “You electronically pick-pocketed them,” he murmured as John gingerly sat down in the other. “Uploaded personal data from their mobiles when they entered the house in order to identify each individual. And us, apparently.”

“Very good, Mr Holmes; not many people would recognize the method, or even realise it was possible. You’re obviously an exception to the general technical ignorance of the overall population. That explains why your mobile proved too much of a challenge on short notice,” the voice replied. “I’m sure I could work around the protocols and encryption with a little effort, but I hardly needed to, since Doctor Watson’s mobile gave me all the information I required to ascertain whom I’m dealing with.” Another pause, and when the voice came back it seemed a little more playful than before. “So tell me, what brings the world’s only consulting detective to my door? The Science of Deduction makes no mention of burglary for hire, although a quick analysis of Doctor Watson’s blog suggests that there’s little you won’t do in pursuit of a case. Please, do tell me how I’ve attracted your notice. I’d offer you cake, but we both know it would be a lie.”

Sherlock snorted. “Now that’s just actively cliché.”

“As one Portal fan to another, I couldn’t resist.”

“I’m not a fan!” Sherlock sputtered indignantly under his breath. “It was for a _case_.”

The voice went on, ignoring his protest. “Speaking of clichés, I’d say so is staging a riot in order to gain access, except it’s clear that those others weren’t part of your diversion. Yours was the charity group at my door, and Doctor Watson, of course. I assume Bill hired you, but I cannot imagine what excuse he gave to –oh!” Another, longer pause, and Sherlock sprang to his feet. John hastily scrambled upright as well.

“Oh, very well done, Mr Holmes. The charity wasn’t the distraction – _you were_ , and are. A very impressive electronic assault. Whoever you have hacking for you is really, really good.” A low laugh. “Very good indeed. Maybe even good enough, if Bill had only been honest with you about what he really wanted.”

“Are you claiming he lied to me?” Sherlock asked, edging towards the door.

“Would you like to see what he’s really after?” the voice countered. “It’s easy enough to show you. Two doors down, on the right-hand side. That’s where you’ll find what you’re looking for, if he told you the truth.”

John grabbed Sherlock’s sleeve before he could rush out the door. “This isn’t a good idea,” he muttered. “What if it’s a trap?”

“You’re already in the trap,” the female voice answered helpfully, its computerized tones setting John’s teeth on edge. “I could have you arrested on trespassing charges at any time. But I promise I have no intention of hurting you.”

“And I’m supposed to believe that why exactly?”

“Come on, John.” Sherlock tugged his arm free. “Let’s go see what there is to see.” Despite his nonchalant words, John noticed that Sherlock was on high alert, watching for any sign of trouble – or anyone at all. Nor did he object when John took point in the corridor. He approached the indicated door with caution and shoved it open without stepping through.

A nearly perfectly empty room met their eyes, with blackout curtains over the windows. The parquet flooring was old and worn, with deep scratches in spots. There was no furniture except for a cloth-covered artist’s easel in one corner and a large, ornately-framed oil painting which hung on one wall with an old-fashioned bell pull hanging next to it.

“Okay, that’s weird,” John muttered. He didn’t like the looks of any of it. Paranoia led him to stand right next to the door, propping it open with his body as Sherlock advanced on the easel, his pocket magnifier already out in his hand, ready to examine what was underneath the cloth.

The picture he uncovered was pretty much what their client had described: their client and a tall, brown-haired woman stood turned towards each other, holding hands and smiling. Above their joined hands, floating and somehow superimposed over their images, were two glowing sigils: his a coat of arms, complete with a crown; hers a much simpler shape but almost seeming to flicker and move, a burning torch.

“This is precisely what he hired us to find,” Sherlock said, staring at the coat of arms through his magnifier. “But I don’t understand how you managed to produce this.”

“That’s because it’s not what he really wanted you to find.” Even through the computerized distortion, the voice sounded sad. “It’s just the proof of concept of my discovery. That’s what he’s really after. He helped bankroll the research, and now he thinks he can dump me and take possession of my creation. As if I'd ever let that happen.”

A hint of movement drew John’s eyes to one side of the oil painting. A panel on the side of the frame swung down, exposing a hidden compartment. Before he could shout a warning, there was an extremely bright flash, and all the breath left his body as if he’d been gut-punched. _Something_ wrenched within him, the oddest sensation he’d ever felt, and the next thing he knew, he was on the ground, groaning, barely able to move. His eyes wouldn’t focus. He thought he heard Sherlock gasp out his name, but he wasn’t sure through the ringing in his ears.

“What was that? What did you do to him?” he heard Sherlock thunder, clear even through his confusion.

“Don’t move, Mr Holmes. Rene wouldn’t hurt a fly, but I’m not the pacifist she is.” Another voice, male, unfamiliar. John fought against the haze clouding his vision, dulling his senses. He strained and made out what he thought was Sherlock, standing absurdly still, and closer by, another figure – or was it two? His eyes burned, tearing up as he tried to force things into focus.

“Jeff? What happened?” The female voice again. John couldn’t tell if the distortion was computerized this time, or just his malfunctioning brain.

"Not sure. A seizure maybe? Is he prone to seizures?"

 _No,_ John wanted to answer, but he couldn't make the word come out. He couldn't make anything come out. He heard more yelling. Sherlock, blistering the air with vicious, vituperative commentary.  The other two voices shouting something back. None of it made sense. It was all fading into a vaguely nauseating hum.

"The problem is definition."

Unlike the others, that voice came through loud and clear. John blinked. There was a face near his own, one he didn't know. Nothing else was in focus, but he saw the face clearly enough. A middle-aged man with an old-fashioned moustache and kind, world-wise eyes looked directly at him. John found himself powerless to look away.

"People like definitions," the man went on. "Mankind has always tried to define things, put them into categories, neat little boxes. But the world doesn't always conform to the rules we try to impose."

John’s phone beeped at almost the same moment he felt hands under his arms, a heaving hoist that left him dizzy, disoriented. The world rocked and shifted. But that couldn't be right, because the face hadn't moved.

"Sometimes the best thing we can do is forget the rules and accept what is." The man gave him a wry, knowing smile. "Particularly when we find ourselves living outside of the definitions in the first place. It's tempting to try and force yourself into a box, I know, but sometimes there's a reason why we don't fit."

That made no bloody sense whatsoever. John instinctively sucked in a breath to tell him off, only to practically gag on a mouthful of cloth. He coughed, and his vision cleared. The face was gone. He was staring at a familiar bit of dark tweed. He’d seen it up close a few times, although never from this angle.

It was Sherlock’s coat. He knew the fabric, the smell.

He also knew what a battlefield carry felt like, uncomfortable and jostling and secure. He’d done more of the carrying in his time than the being carried, but he was definitely being carried now. By Sherlock.

“Sherlock?” The question came out mumbled, but more or less as he’d intended. That was a relief.

“John? Hold still.” Sherlock’s voice, sounding strained and out of breath, but otherwise normal. That too was much better, being able to hear without sound going in and out.

Obediently John held himself still, trusting his friend to know what he was about. In less than a minute Sherlock crouched down and eased John off of his shoulder to rest half-sitting against a garden wall. The stone wall that surrounded the villa and its grounds, John realised, just before two gloved hands grabbed his face and Sherlock’s worried visage stared into his own. “Are you all right?”

John twitched his hands, arms, and legs. Everything moved as he expected. He still felt a little odd, but the effects of whatever-it-was were definitely fading. “I think so. What was that?”

“A malfunction, or so I’m meant to believe.” Sherlock nearly spat the words, anger and concern blending into a fine display of Holmesian temper. “I have to agree: it’s definitely a device too dangerous to exist.”

“Agree with whom?”

An enormous booming, roaring sound interrupted before Sherlock could answer. The ground shook beneath them and nearby car alarms whooped in protest as the villa collapsed, imploding neatly upon itself in a cloud of dust and smoke.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Gladys" is actually GlaDOS from the Portal video game series. There are many voice synthesizer patches available around the Internet to imitate her voice effects.


	5. Worldly

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John was mobile enough after the blast to leg it with Sherlock away from the ruins of the villa.

  
 

Chapter 5: Worldly

 

John was mobile enough after the blast to leg it with Sherlock away from the ruins of the villa. Sherlock made sure to avoid any CC cameras for the first few blocks, so hopefully there wouldn’t be any awkward questions from Mycroft (or anyone else) about what they’d been doing in the vicinity of the exploded villa. They made it back to Baker Street without having to deal with any authorities, and by the time John climbed the steps to their flat, he felt like himself again. Mostly.

“What happened?” he asked at last, after making two cups of tea and settling down into his chair. He tossed Sherlock a packet of his favourite biscuits. The ploy only worked about half the time, but apparently this was one of those, for he took two and absently started to nibble on one.

“They took our picture. Apparently it was supposed to capture our sigils as well as our physical images.”

John’s breath caught. “But it didn’t?”

Sherlock scowled and brought out his phone, scrolling one finger across its surface until it lit up with an image. “There was some kind of malfunction, or so they said. It’s supposedly the first time anything like that has happened. Personally I think they were running some kind of scam.” He snorted. “People are so wrapped up in the superstition that lies around sigils. Claiming to have invented a device that actually records them – it’s been tried ever since the invention of the camera. And before that, really, if you look at the history of alchemy.”

John’s breath caught as he glimpsed the picture on Sherlock’s phone. He suddenly remembered his phone beeping at him earlier, and hastily dug it out.

“Oh, look, they’ve also sent me a text message,” Sherlock went on. “Typical criminals, wanting to explain themselves. ‘We both think our best recourse is flight and the destruction of the machine. Even before today’s malfunction, I had come to the conclusion that the world is not ready for my invention. Worldly considerations will always rank higher than scientific advancement, and the potential for abuses is simply far too high. Please believe that we never meant you or your friend any harm. As for your client, you may tell him that he is safe. So long as he leaves off any pursuit of us, I will keep the evidence of our relationship – and his sigil – unpublished. All Jeff and I want is to love one another and live our lives in peace.’ Poppycock. All they want is to get away. And so they have, at least for now. It was a little more important to me to get us out of a building set to implode than it was to apprehend them, but I’m sure I can track them down eventually.”

John only barely heard Sherlock’s rant. The vast majority of his attention was riveted on the image that had been sent to his mobile. It showed Sherlock standing by the picture, magnifier in hand, and John standing near the door. A blur of light hovered near John, its shape vague but certainly recognizable enough to John’s eyes, seeing as he’d been staring at that amorphous not-quite-a-sigil ever since Afghanistan. The glow from John’s indistinct soul-sign glinted in the lens in Sherlock’s hand, _but not off of the glossy surface of the photograph behind it_ …

“It’s your magnifier.” The words escaped John’s lips before his brain could catch up and think about what he was saying.

Sherlock twisted up from his usual lounging position on the sofa and sat stiffly upright. His eyes darted over every inch John’s face and body, examining, thinking. All at once they widened. “It wasn’t a malfunction.”

It was a statement, not a question, but John answered it anyway through numb lips, overpowering the shrieking instinct to remain silent. “No. Or at least I don’t think so.” He swallowed dryly, feeling the tension in his throat muscles as well as the sudden ache in his bad shoulder. “But how – how is it – how can…” John trailed off, failing to find the words to ask a question he couldn’t even frame in his head.

Sherlock was slightly paler than usual, but otherwise showed no sign of any strain or distress, any indication that this was anything more than another post-case discussion. His hand twitched, and suddenly his magnifier was there, looking perfectly plain and ordinary and _nothing_ like a sigil. “People see what they want to see, John, and always overlook the obvious.” He glanced down, turning it – _his sigil_ – over in his hand before looking back up at John. “It’s a family trait in the Holmesian line, the ability to mask the sigil, make it appear an ordinary object, or hide it from sight entirely even when manifested from all but the very rare few who can see the sigils of others. For example, no one will ever see Mycroft’s glasses unless he wants them to, which he never does, the vain git.” He fidgeted again, but this time his eyes never left John’s. “It just so happened that in my case, the family talent was exaggerated. I can’t manifest my sigil as something others recognize as such. It doesn’t glow, doesn’t appear as anything extraordinary to anyone without the sight. Not that it matters.”

John sat back in his chair, rocked to the core by the multiple revelations – not just about Sherlock himself, but about Mycroft and the Holmes family in general. He knew what he had to do, though, and after a moment, he found the courage and will to do it. He closed his left hand tightly and then opened it, willing his soul-form to manifest.

And it did. But this time, as he watched, it took an actual shape, one he’d never seen before. A rod, but with razor-sharp wings, and not one but two snakes writhing around it in a double helix. The tip was sharp, but instead of a scalpel, it resembled nothing more than a pen-point.

“A caduceus,” Sherlock breathed, apparently recognizing it immediately. “Or a variant on the form.” He blinked and focused his attention on John rather than the glowing sign hovering above his hand. “I take it this is new? Or can you camouflage your sigil, blur it at will?”

“It’s new,” John whispered, hardly believing his eyes. “It’s very new.”

Was it the final form? John had no idea. It felt different than it ever had before, but he had no idea what it meant – either the feeling of it inside, or the symbolic meaning of the sign glowing faintly blue and gleaming inches above his hand.

“It suits you,” Sherlock offered diffidently, almost shyly. “Thank you for showing me.”

And it did, particularly once John had a chance to look it up later. A caduceus had many meanings: a messenger/communicator; a balancer, one comfortable with life and with death, violence and peace, with eyes wide open and words to tell what he sees when he so chooses. If he were an American, it also might mean medicine, but he wasn’t. He was an Englishman, a British solider and medic, a modern-day adventurer and blogger, the man at the side of Sherlock Holmes.

That was more than enough, at least for the moment. For John Watson, and for Sherlock Holmes.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...and that's it for this strange little AU I've created, at least for now. It's a big place though, this AU, so I might well visit it again sometime. Thanks to those of you who stuck with it!

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted 10/31/2013


End file.
